Haunt Me
by darkNnerdy
Summary: When the thought of being alone becomes too much, Edward performs a desperate act that will haunt him for the rest of his days. A short birthday fic for the one and only Satan. Happy Birthday, Liv. Rated M for dark themes
1. Chapter 1

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY SATAN! **

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. **

**Prompt:**** One of Satan's most deceptive and powerful ways of defeating us is to get us to believe a lie. And the biggest lie is that there are no consequences to our own doing. Satan will give you whatever you ask for if it will lead you where he ultimately wants you. - Charles Stanley**

**Haunt Me **

**One**

Fire bubbled inside of her, licking at her nerves and charring her bones. It was a dark desire, something sinister that crept upon her like a storm and she bathed in it. There wasn't a single thing like it in her new world. One minute she'd felt air leaving her lungs and the next Edward was looking down upon her, beautiful smile on his face, offering her his hand.

"We're all alone." She smiled into the dark as her head rested on his slumped shoulder, her cold skin making him shiver.

"Bella…" The word tasted like acid on his tongue, but fought to be freed as he struggled inside.

"Do you believe in God, Edward?" Her slender fingers traced the blood on his arm, a cruel heart taking shape as she hummed.

"Is that why you're doing this?" he choked out and the knife in his side dug as deep as his words, but her smile didn't fade.

**So this is completely written at 21 chapters, each consisting of around 200 words and for LivieLiv. It will update throughout the day today. Today is her birthday and as a gift I wanted to give her something that I knew she'd enjoy. She is one of the very best this fandom has to offer and an amazing friend who has taught me about loyalty, friendship, writing and so much more. Without her I wouldn't be the writer or the friend I am today.**

**I have to thank Lynz and Myherion for being brave and helping me with this. These two are the best. ever. **


	2. Chapter 2

"I miss the sun." She pushed the blinds back in their hole in the wall apartment and sighed. "The clean air, it's all ash now. I can smell the dead."

"How many days?" he asked, trying the cuff once more, but failing. "Are you sure we're all that's left?"

"Nine hundred and twenty," she whispered and turned. "And yes, there is no one else, Edward. Have you been waiting for a savior? Do you really think I'd let them take you away?"

He winced at her harsh look, his insides crawling as something skittered over her greying skin.

"Are we safe here?" he asked, rolling his eyes at himself. No one was safe anymore, least of all him.

She giggled and flopped down beside him as the cold edge of steel drifted up his leg.

"Are you ashamed of me?" She looked up at him through dirty lashes and bright blue eyes.

There was hope there. Deep inside of her, and he wanted to squash it as much as he wanted to fuel it.

He bit back a snarl and slammed his head against the wall, sighing as she snuggled up close.

"Sleep, Bella."


	3. Chapter 3

Clouds rolled around them, dipping low into the tree tops as they made their way through the abandoned town. Edward had no idea where they were, or what city they had stumbled into. Everything was dark and littered with broken, charred bones. He couldn't even remember how alive everything had once been.

They'd been moving at a slow pace, Edward a few feet behind Bella as they walked through the streets. His eyes rarely left her form as his ears listened to the wind. He'd become cautious as it became clear they were really alone in the broken world.

He often wondered if they'd find a camp filled with people who might welcome them, but when his eyes roamed Bella's body he'd became grateful they hadn't. Not yet. He feared for anyone and anything that came near her. If he'd thought she was unstable before, he'd been very wrong. She was more than wild now, lethal even in her fragile state. She was every bit rabid only masked by a decaying beauty that still effected him.

Edward cursed the sky and God and everything that brought him to this moment. His lungs burned with the need to scream at her, but his heart ached more, winning and booming in triumph as he remained silent.

Bella twirled in the empty streets. Her arms stretched as wide as her smile as she let the harsh wind rustle her hair. She felt alive here, all alone in the world save for Edward. It was peaceful walking among the dead. No one to tell her no, or lock her up for her crimes.

"Animals still roam, Bella. You should really try to be quiet." He regretted the words instantly, going stiff as he waited for her to lash out.

Bella stopped, her foot landing with a crunch on a corpse long dead, as her harsh eyes leveled on him.

"Excuse me?" She sneered his way and stomped. Edward tried to ignore the sound of wet crunching, but his stomach rolled anyway, and he clutched at it as pain snapped him nearly in half.

Edward blinked as she kissed him with the knife and his world went black.


	4. Chapter 4

The dark haunting look in her eyes bothered him more and more as the days passed on. The blue was made even more deadly surrounded by sunken, purple skin. She was a shadow of the girl he loved, a poor construct made by a desperate man, but he couldn't let her go. He lacked the strength that once shined when she was near. She'd made him weak against her charms and he hated her more and more each day for it.

"I'm hungry," she whined and his stomach dropped. Dread filled Edward and his chest tightened.

She'd lived off anything that was dying and he off cans of beans and whatever else they found.

"There's nothing left," he told her as he rummaged through his pack. His hand trembled as the words left his mouth, an uneasy feeling settling in his gut.

Her fingers drew designs in the dust that collected on the broken dresser in their new room. She often found herself caught up in simple things. A leaf that floated in the bleak sky. Dirt as it turned to mud in the acidic rain that poured from hellish, dark clouds. Everything was beautiful in her new eyes and she couldn't help but follow all the things that she was sure she'd once missed.

"Bella." Edward patted the wall, trying to grab her attention. "We're out of food."

"No we aren't, silly boy!" She bounced on the balls of her feet, and twisted to meet his green eyes as she sniffed the air.

Her knife was out and at her side before he could say a word. Where it once would shine with his desperate reflection, it now gleamed with his dried blood.

He winced as she smiled. She was all teeth and plump lips, taunting and evil.


	5. Chapter 5

"Where?" he asked, pressing her tight to his side. Even if there was no sunshine anymore, the light grey that sat above them for a few hours a day were much better than the absolute dark at night.

The dark meant shadows and fear. Playtime for evil things that still lurked in their dead world, evil things like his Bella. She wrapped herself around him most nights like a snake, striking out at him in all her serpent like glory, and he welcomed it. It was this version's hug, suffocating him and crushing him until he broke.

"It keeps moving." She whirled around, her hair whipping back and forth as she sniffed the air. "Fuck!"

"Relax," he tried, but she flicked her wrist and cut into his side with ease as she giggled.

Edward stumbled back and her eyes shot wide as blood stained his shirt.

"Oops." She shrugged, poking the knew hole she'd created, her lips twitching with a malevolent smile. "You scared me."

Edward regretted his decision the minute he had made it, but he couldn't take it back. Killing her meant killing a part of himself and he just wasn't ready for that.

Not yet.

If being connected to a dead girl meant he could keep her a little while longer, then he'd deal with everything she'd thrown his way with a bitter smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Edward's mouth was dry and his fists clenched as he tried to process what was happening. With every inch he gave Bella, she would take a mile, and standing in the yard had been no different. He could see her struggling, the war in her eyes as she'd look back and forth between him and wait awaited beyond the house.

"They're… Bella they are alive." The curtain on the second story of the old house she'd led him to moved as they stood in the yard. Edward's breath caught in his throat as he watched small hands yank the fabric and he wanted to scream and cry and slit her throat.

"Not for long, silly." She waved her knife in the air as if chastising him.

"You can't kill people." His lips formed a tight line and he knew that he should pull her away, demand that they leave this broken town, but his stomach growled and the skin that clung to his bones ached.

He was too weak to stop her and they both knew it.

Something in the back of his mind drew another check, marking another act. It carved a harsh line in the recess of his skull and he winced, trying to let it soothe him.

"I'm hungry." She pouted and his fingers twitched to wrap around her flesh and snap her neck.

"Bella no," he growled, but she was already gone, long legs taking the stairs two at a time as her laugh wrapped around him, brushing his skin in a lovers touch.

"Catch me if you can, Edward!" she sang as the screen door slammed against wood.


	7. Chapter 7

The sound of tearing flesh, wet and sticky, was something he would never forget. Edward closed his eyes, praying to the sky that he could block it out, make it disappear as he pulled cans from hiding spots within the house. He tried to keep himself busy, moving further away from the sickening noise, but it echoed off every wall, laughing at him as he went.

"Are you sure you won't have some?" She offered him a torn piece of meat, blood dripping to the floor in loud splats, but he shook his head no. "We could cook it."

"Just… eat." His stomach churned in disgust as her tongue lapped at the meat, her fingers digging in like the greedy monster she was.

Edward ate, tearing into a can of tuna as he sat in the corner of a dark room. He could still make out the sounds of teeth hitting bone as Bella snacked away.

"Thank you, Edward." She looked up at him and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand smearing blood across her cheek. "I've been so hungry."

Edward looked down at the mess below her. A small hand still clutched at a ragged teddy bear and he lost his appetite.

**Anyone still with me? You guys are so quiet. Make some noise, okay? **

**R****eview. Review. Review. **


	8. Chapter 8

Silence made Edward nervous. It always had. Even when he was a child and his mother tucked him in at night, he struggled to keep himself from screaming when she would leave the room. Bella had been his savior against the nothingness. She would smile and run her fingers through his hair. Sometime she'd whisper, others she would hum.

He missed that about her. Her smile against his cheek as she kissed him goodnight. The feel of her fingertips against his skin and her toes tangling in his sheets.

"We're gonna die." Bella clutched at his hand a little tighter as they lay together on the bed surrounded by fresh bone and broken people. Blood painted her lips and chin, but she had thought it was an improvement over the grey and ashen look it now took on. "We'll you're gonna die. I'm already dead."

"Everyone dies." Edward refused to look back at Bella. Since she'd been brought back she had been a very messy eater. He could deal with deer hair under her nails, or blood from a dog in her hair, he'd seen it so much it became normal. This was different. She was still gripping the remains of a leg in her hand as her other entwined with his.

"And yet you brought me back. That was very thoughtful of you." She kissed his hand and he fought the urge to gag, repulsed at the warm sticky liquid left by her lips.

He listened in the dark as she would take chunks of meat into her mouth and he'd let the tears fall from his face, un-ashamed and afraid of the woman he once loved.

"Do you still love me, Edward?" she asked, as if reading his mind.

No. He thought as his eyes stayed glued to the ceiling. He hadn't loved her since Alice brought her back. He shouldn't have trusted a witch but he'd been desperate and sick. She was supposed to be his savior, and yet the only thing she'd done was infect him with a ghost of Bella.

"Sleep," he told her, squeezing her ice cold hand, and blocking out the sounds of her gnawing against the child he'd seen in the window.


	9. Chapter 9

They had sex in the blood of her food. Rough and demanding, he punished her for his wounds and his regrets. His hands tore at her as she met his angry hips with her own.

With every thrust he grew bitter, but it soothed him having her so close. Like a balm to his ever growing hurt. He had imagined waking and leaving her, alone and slowly dying by herself, but she had smiled and kissed him, telling him that he was her everything and he became weak and annoyed.

Skin smacked and sweat soaked them as the room heated with their feral act. He wanted her to feel his pain, to pour into her as he released inside of her, but she wanted more.

His fingers, long and lean, wrapped around her delicate throat as she rode him. Scream after scream tore from her mouth as her eyes begged for more and her nails dug into his back.

She was so very dangerous, but he enjoyed the way she felt against him. Raw and magnetic.

Edward knew he was growing insane with every passing minute he stayed with her, but he couldn't stop. Couldn't let her go.

"I hate you," he whispered against her cold mouth just before he rolled off of her.

"Silly boy."

He hated her for using the words of his Bella. That nickname wasn't supposed to fall from dead lips.


	10. Chapter 10

The next time he awoke he was bound again. His wrists ached and his ankles bled, but she was licking his wounds like a rabid dog. She'd become addicted to his blood in some sick twisted fate from Alice.

The first time it was only to wake her. A drop of blood and the spell would be complete. Bella had nearly drank him dry, tearing his flesh open and lapping at him like he was her savior.

"One thousand fourteen," he whispered as he clenched his fists, his eyes stuck on the drying blood that splattered along the walls. "Not long now."

"You keep saying that."

"And you keep tying me up." He jerked on his binding, leveling his eyes with hers.

"You were going to leave me."

His green eyes grew dark they narrowed in on her. She was rubbing his leg and twirling her hair. She looked so fucking innocent and he wanted to break her. Leave her crying like she'd left him.

"You can't ever leave me, silly boy." She licked her lips and crawled up his body. "I'd kill you first," she said against his ear and he snapped, thrashing against her body.

"Bella…" he tried but the tip of her blade pricked into his thigh.

"Promise me," she demanded, pushing the blade deeper as she gripped his chin, forcing his eyes to her.

"You're dead!" he spat in her face. "Nothing but the body of the woman I loved. I should have left you rotting in that coffin."

He struggled against her, thrashing and screaming until she sunk the knife into his thigh.

"Promise me, Edward." She lifted the knife an inch and when he said nothing, drove it into muscle and bone.

"Kill me." Black spots danced at the edge of his vision and he welcomed them like home.

"Not today," she said, pulling knife free and licking the blade. "We have places to see, houses to explore. I'm still hungry and I don't think we're as alone as you said."

"Kill me," he snapped at her and she giggled as her cheek began to sag. Purple skin drooped and even her devilish smile wouldn't lift it.

"Stop being dramatic. You lied to me. I had to punish you, but now I'm bored," she huffed, wiping the blade along her tongue.

Edward watched as she sat beside him and his stomach rolled once more.

"Your eye."

"Hmmm?" Slowly her lids began to part, lashes spreading wide as her eyeball started to slip free. Edward heaved at the sickening pop it made as it skidded down the skin of her cheek, coming to rest on her cheekbone.

"Oh, God." He twisted his wrist, trying hard to break free as it began to move once more, the blue landing directly on him as her empty lashes winked at him.

"Oh! I like this!" Her haunting laugh echoed in the small room as she flicked her eye and shook her head, making it swing and smack against her now broken nose.


	11. Chapter 11

"What happened?" she asked as she carved and E and B into an old log he was sitting on.

"The end of the world."

"Duh." His lips twitched at her childlike response. She was so much like his old Bella when she acted this way and then his eyes landed on her knife.

It had been his once. He'd planned to kill her after a year. She had killed a child, a preference it seemed when it came to her appetite. His heart broke at the site of Bella sitting with a kid in her lap, his arm in her mouth. He should have killed her right then, but she was quicker than he'd been expecting and he'd been flat on his back, his own knife at his throat before he could blink.

It had been the first time he ever angered her and it grew from there. She'd refused to give back the knife and he had several hundred scars, gifts as she'd put it, from her because of that one act.

When they hunted for food now, he searched for a gun. He just wasn't sure who he would use it on yet.

"Tell me the truth or I'll stab you again."

Edward shuddered at the truth in her words. He'd already told her this story before, several times over.

"You're forgetting things." he told her and she shrugged, her attention back on her log.

"Then tell me again. I like your stories."

"Meteors."

"Is that why the sun is gone?" Edward nodded, unsure of exactly what had happened after the first few hit.


	12. Chapter 12

"It is with a heavy heart that we must report the fall of the White House." The words struck him in the gut, leaving him breathless and hollow. "We urge the citizen's still within our viewing area to hold their loved ones tight. Good luck, and may God be with you."

Things like 'Total Destruction' and 'This is the End' had flashed at the bottom of the screen.

There was a sizzle and pop and the woman had disappeared. Edward had watched the blinking lights across a map of the United States on CNN. He'd been glued to the TV for days, watching as one by one the lights faded out.

He had sworn it was all just a vivid dream. Something dark writers created to scare those outside of the hoax. Only there were no writers, no scripts, only the scared anchors urging people to find shelter and hunker down.

This wasn't a war for our troops to fight. No bad guy they could eventually capture. The sky had fallen devouring everything in its path.

There was panic everywhere and the news had finally stopped airing. There was nothing but a rainbow and static on the TVs and radios, the sound disturbing him. Bella had only been brought back for a few months, hidden in his basement and away from prying eyes. Her funeral had been a huge event in their small town and even though she was paler, he had no doubt people would recognize her.

Edward remembered the first hit, a small town in Virginia had been destroyed. When the dust settled the entire state had become a crater. More cities followed and then countries. The hits lasted a year, a meteor shower brought on by two larger meteors crashing together above earth. Their destruction had rained down and slowly enveloped their lives.

It turned once beautiful landscapes into nightmares and the people into savage dogs. You couldn't walk around without the stale smell of death and old blood. Families were slaughtered for what they held in their broken homes. Streets were littered with wrecked cars, their occupants half out of windows as they tried to find safety. Buildings were smashed, their once towering beacons, nothing more than smoking rubble.

Edward had holed up in his basement, ticking off the days in an old calendar and then starting over again until the cement box became a prison. Bella's appetite had grown and her skin had turned grey, worrying him. He knew they could only live off what he would scrounge for for so long. He'd been terrified to walk free with her, but had little other choice.

Neither had been above ground since the showers first started, but the minute her feet hit the dirt he knew he'd made a horrible mistake.

Down in their small sanctuary away from the fallen world, her smiles kept him alive. Bright blue eyes held everything he thought he'd lost. He'd loved her fiercely and possessively, wanting her only for himself. A selfish man, broken and afraid he'd lose her again.

In the grey harsh light of the clouds he finally opened his eyes and when her once beautiful smile twisted into something dark and wicked he'd hid a knife.

"I've got you," he promised and grabbed her hand, hope filling him as he waited to see if his touch would soothe her, but it hadn't. She had seen him as a pet, a gatherer, someone to aid her in her destruction. Not her lover, or her best friend. Not the man who had once worshiped her like a Goddess. She liked being his weakness, the only thing that could truly make him bend or break.

Edward wasn't a fool. Desperate maybe, but never a fool. He'd seen the deadly look in her eyes. The freedom she felt at releasing her into the world. It tore his insides apart, flaying him to see her so happy out there. It had been the first time Edward had let tears fall since he saw her in a coffin. The first time his stitched together heart had broken all over again.

It was that soft brown hair, the way it framed her tight pale face, that brought his feet one in front of the other, following her. Even surrounded by a fallen world he couldn't let her go. Wouldn't let her out of his reach. His need was much more powerful than his hate.

She might have grown possessive of the man at her side, but Edward had always been possessive of her.


	13. Chapter 13

"It's snowing." Bella flopped onto the ground, her arms pushing at the snow as a very odd look covered her face. She was falling apart everywhere, but somehow becoming stronger. Her rage had picked up strength as the days trudged along.

"When you're like this it makes me miss her." Edward's words were bitter and filled with hate. He picked at the small red berries on a bush to distract himself from her.

"I know." She shrugged in the snow. "I thought you wanted me to be more like your Bella."

Edward eyed the berries in his hand, he wondered for only a moment if they were poison before plopping them in his mouth.

"I don't," he snapped at her, eyes growing angry and tight.

"Liar." Her feet kicked at the wintery mix on the ground as her laughter echoed off the trees.

"We need to find shelter soon."

"Not yet, though. I promise no more talking, okay?"

Edward sighed, but a ghost of smile lifted the corner of his mouth. This was a game she willingly played. She'd give him moments of the old Bella and then take and twist her into a nasty pile that burned him to his core.

Yet Edward watched, silent and exhausted, devouring those moments and letting her break his heart just a fraction more.


	14. Chapter 14

"Was that an earthquake?" Edward's head snapped up, his neck ached and his eyes strained as smoke began to billow in the north.

They'd found an old house a few months ago, and made it their own.

Some days they sat on the porch holding hands and others they'd hunt. Today had been the hand holding. Edward had been desperate for contact she'd been content to withhold.

Bella enjoyed the hunting. Her hunger had grown so much in the last year and rotting fur covered animals didn't fill her the way fresh flesh had. She would take him deeper into the woods that surrounded them, her heart set and hope soaring that they'd run across a beating heart. Something on two legs with more fight than a wild cat.

Bella wasn't a fool. She knew she'd been risen from the grave, awoken because someone couldn't let go. Even though her mind grew fuzzier everyday, she knew Edward had loved that girl. She also knew that that he'd lost his mind and that he was just as much her anchor to this bleak reality as he was hers.

Bella was selfish in her manipulation of him. She hungered for his meat as much as his touches. He'd been an amazing lover and had offered his blood enough to sustain and keep her alive.

He did it for himself and she liked that about him.

"Volcano." Edward pointed high above the trees and her eyes shot wide, amazed at the site.

"Are we close? Can we go look?"

"Soon." He'd said, but she knew he wasn't talking about the volcano, just like he wasn't talking about the ocean when she'd asked the same.


	15. Chapter 15

"That bear didn't last long."

Bella was on the floor again. She'd claimed it her own about a week ago, telling him it felt good against her decaying flesh. She had started to smell, and he'd been grateful for the distance. Whenever she was close he couldn't hide his disgust, and even though she would laugh that eerie laugh, it killed him a little more inside.

"You barely left me any," Edward grumbled, his stomach screaming at him as he picked at the bones of the cub.

"I was starving," she huffed, rolling around on the dirty carpet. "Anyway, you rarely eat anything when we do have food. You trying to kill yourself, silly boy?"

His eyes slid over to her and his skin crawled at the sight.

When the volcano erupted and ash began to fall, Bella rushed the yard. Some of the ash had been burning bright red, not yet fizzled out, and burned at her skin.

In the beginning when Bella had come back and bumped her skin a bruise would appear. Sometimes she would trip over a log, or cut her leg on a thorn bush. A scab would appear and she'd quickly heal. Edward had guessed it had to do with whatever that witch had done to her. The ash burns didn't heal, though. They left tiny holes in her cheek and littered about on her arms. Edward could see bone and rotten muscle in those small holes. He'd wake to nightmares of the holes widening, swallowing him whole.

"I love you." Bella smiled up at him unhinged and he cursed Alice yet again.

He'd given her everything. Money. His blood. A promise to return the favor. Her voice rang in his head and her face hung in the shadows daily, taunting him and laughing with Bella.

Edward's hand itched to tear something apart as he looked down at her, the memory of Alice fresh and pulsing in his mind.

"Soon."


	16. Chapter 16

"I missed you, silly boy!" She lunged at him, her arms wrapping tight around his neck as he smiled into her hair.

"We weren't apart long." She buried her face in his shoulder, refusing to let go as he spoke.

"Alice was chatty. She even paid for lunch this time. She was acting odd, though." She threaded her fingers in his hair, pulling him back to meet her pale blue eyes. "What are you two up to?"

"Nothing." His cheeks tinted with red as his free hand fumbled with a black velvet box.

"You're an awful liar."

He kissed her full lips hard and pulled her into his lap. He loved the feeling of her next to him, their hearts so close he was sure their beats would become one if he held her just a little tighter.

Edward had been so sure she was nothing more than a mirage for so long. Too good to be true. When he'd wake to find her snuggled beside him, tangled up and hanging on for dear life, he didn't think he could ever feel so complete.

"Something's wrong." She pushed against his shoulder and he smiled.

"No, sweet girl. Everything is perfect."

Edward lifted her, setting her on the spot he'd occupied and bent on one knee.

"Isabella Marie Swan," he started, fumbling with the box in his pocket. His heart slammed against him ribs in anticipation as Bella's eyes went wide.

"Oh my, God!"

"You are the most important person in my life. My everything in this world. I feel like the luckiest man with you by my side and it would be my honor if you would become Mrs. Cullen." He opened the box to reveal a small diamond. He'd worked overtime for months to afford the thin band and another six months just for the diamond, but he'd done it and the look on her face made every grueling hour worth it.

"Silly boy." Tears pricked at her eyes as her hands shook. She reached for the box and then his face, smashing their lips and breathing yes over and over into his mouth.

She'd been a vision in white, her father on her arm as she walked down the aisle to him.

Everything had finally made sense in his life, the pieces magically clicking together as he held her hand in the car. He couldn't stop looking at the gold bands on her fingers or the breathtakingly beautiful smile on her face.

It had all been for him. The 'I do', the kiss, the night he finally took her into his bed. He'd never forget those moments, forever locked inside his mind as the bright crimson red tried to scar and taint them.

And then his eyes had roamed too long. He was devouring the sight of Bella in shorts. Her long tanned legs crossing, and her silky smooth skin under his palm.

"Edward!" She'd screamed her arms moving to his side, gripping his shoulders as her body shook.

The driver had been drunk and the sky too dark. Edward hadn't even registered the headlights as they swam over their car.

He'd pulled her from the car with the unnatural strength of a grieving man. Anguished roars ripping through the sound of an ever blaring horn as he held her in his arms. He begged God and anyone that would hear to save her. He'd give his life and die in her place if only they would save her.

"Bella no," he sobbed as she hiccuped beneath him.

It was like cold water splashed on his face. He awoke to the nightmare, his fingers clutching at the sheet as he had at his Bella as she lay dying in his arms. He could still taste the burning smell of asphalt and tears as he tried to focus on where he was.

When Edward felt something at his side he side he'd stretched only to find the cold pale skin of the woman he'd lost.

"I'm so sorry," he breathed out, his fingers going into her hair only to pull strands away.

It hardened him to see her sleeping peaceful when his Bella was gone. She was enjoying herself, curled up against his side and it tortured him.

He tasted blood as he leaned away from, his teeth digging hard into his lip as his heart hardened just a tiny bit more.


	17. Chapter 17

Even if his heart was as cold as this Bella he knew he couldn't deny her anything. She may be cruel but his plans were just as monstrous as she was and he was cemented in them, letting them grow as he watched her.

The word humane had echoed inside his head over the last week so much, he was afraid she would figure him out, and maybe she had. From the look on her face, he was sure she knew what he was up to. She was so much like his Bella, so suspicious of his actions.

"Thank you," she mumbled around a mouthful of meat.

Edward listened to her chew as the smell of burning flesh swirled around him.

"You tell me all the time you hate me, but you really do love me, silly boy." She giggled, her teeth clamping down on a chunk of skin.

Edward didn't dare talk, the pain in his body was too much, and he knew when he opened his mouth he'd scream and cry.

"You look tired." She cocked her head to the side and stared at him. He was growing weak, much weaker than her last memory could recall. His eyes were circled in black and his cheek sunken in. He was still so very beautiful to her, weak and gaunt, but beautiful.

A whimper filled their little cabin and she winced, but chewed on.

"I really am sorry. You should have let me hunt." She shrugged, her good eye glaring at the man she'd tied to a chair. He struggled and she smiled.

Edward's body shook with the memory of the iron. It's heat had licked at his open wound until the welcomed darkness consumed him, sealing his exposed flesh. When he'd finally opened his eyes Bella had been shoving food into his mouth. It took him four bites for the realization to punch him in the gut.

"Sleep, silly boy." She kissed his cheek leaving a bloody print as he looked down.

Charred elbow met his eyes, the wound wrapped in a torn bedsheet.

"You won't miss it. I promise. You have me to protect you." She gave him a cheery smile and began to clean the bone of his arm with her tongue.


	18. Chapter 18

She'd protected him like promised. Fighting off a cougar and preparing it for him to eat later that night.

Edward's wound had soon healed, the infection he prayed to kill him never came. He'd been resigned to death, going to sleep every night hoping beyond hope that should kill him in his sleep. Instead, Bella had been protective and loving. She took to bathing him and holding him when the pain of the world became too much for him to bear.

Bella became everything he had needed and missed and he hated her so much for it.

His heart great colder every day, it's constant pounding nothing more than a reminder that he was alive and she was nothing but dead flesh and a hollow casing.

A curse.

"The storms are getting worse. Two months, right?" He nodded and she beamed.

Edward had showed her how to count the days by. He had no way of knowing if he was right, but it kept him mind busy and his eyes off her knife.

"Did we walk in the rain?" Bella opened the door, letting the rain warmed air into their cabin.

"We did." A sob threatened him as the words fell from his mouth and the only five fingers he had left clenched. He'd forgotten so much of that Bella in the years that had passed since the world ended.

Her smile faded like clouds and her eyes disappeared into the shadows of his mind.

This Bella's eyes had grown a greyish blue, fading with the effects of death. Most of her hair was gone, ripped out by her own hands when he wouldn't pay attention to her. She'd taken to punishing her body in order to hurt him.

It worked. His tears had became her reward and she reveled in them, capturing each one with her fingers and tasting them as she laughed.

"Sixteen hundred and two, right?"

He nodded as she stepped into the rain, her hand stretched behind her, waiting for the puppet she had created.


	19. Chapter 19

He wore his new scars with pride, smiling at Bella in triumph as she growled.

"Stupid boy!" she shrieked, her knife digging deeper into his side as the blood pooled on the sheets of their bed. "Stupid infuriating boy!"

His lips were sealed and he kept his frail body as still as possible as she stabbed him.

Bella had been forgetting things and taking it out on Edward. He'd endured six months of her horror before he'd laughed when she couldn't remember her name.

"Silly, dead girl," he'd spat and she lunged.


	20. Chapter 20

The earth rumbled beneath them as they fought, her hand clutching his hair and his teeth on the soft flesh of neck. Old black blood stained his lips as he spat the chunk he'd ripped free from her throat. She'd tasted worn and old on his tongue, but he needed the upper hand and sunk his teeth deeper into her as her screams filled the air.

Dirt split around them and rocks tumbled from the mountains in the east.

None of it mattered. It didn't exist in the battle. Only rage and hate and fear.

Pity had left Edward along with any love he could scrape from the heart he now claimed as an empty pit. His insides were nothing but ice, carved by the woman who straddled his chest.

They raged on as the world around them hissed and spun, spitting and churning out all it had left. The skies glowed a deep pink, swirling with black as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Acid rains burned their skin as he tore at her broken flesh with his good arm. He enjoyed the sound it made, smiling as his fingers slipped on her blood.

Something in the distance burst bright and high into the air, blinding them both and tossing them into the trees.

Bella's head snapped against a tree and Edward's body rolled with a thud into the grass.

He was breathless and gripping his side as he watched her stand on shaky legs.

"Just die!" he screamed at her, blood and tears mixing on his bruised face. He threw his weight into her when she ran for him, but she only laughed as she leaped, her foot landing in his face.

She had given into all his desires, but this was too much. He could have her body, her soul. He could bed her and kiss her soft lips. Promise a long forever and watch her as she slept, but he wasn't going to take the life he'd helped create.

Not from her. Not yet.

The fight continued deep into the night. Their crashing bodies and the crumbling world scaring off the limited food supply as screams turned into roars and roars into sobs.

Slowly, Edward became unhinged. His body wrecked and worn, his mind becoming animalistic and as dangerous as the dead girl who fought him like a warrior trained for this very moment in time.

"Silly, silly girl." He laughed, licking the blood from his knuckles as he caught her off guard, landing a hard hit to her cheek. She might have been strong, but her brittle old bones were weak.

"Stupid, broken boy!" she hissed, wiping the blood from her face, and revealing a large hole. Her teeth lay broken inside, ripped muscles pulling back as she gave him a wicked smile.

They'd beaten their bodies as the earth destroyed it's shell. Rivers flowed in chaos around them as lava and ash licked at the ground. The cabin had been destroyed long ago, days or weeks, maybe months, neither had kept up with time as they fell into kicks and punches.

Edward's mind whirled with indecision as he bounced on the balls of his feet. His clothing torn, his body naked and his muscles tight. She enjoyed destroying him, revealing his broken body and touching him with a lovers stroke being breaking his bones.

It was a brutal match. She would pin him to a tree, her legs spread wide swallowing him and riding out her pleasure as he tried to fight her off. Lips crashed together like the mountains and they fought as hard as they fucked.

He'd scream, biting and licking at her body as she writhed against him and then it was war once more.

It was a final game, the pieces slowly falling into place as they tried to outlast one another.

"Just… Bella just go. Please!" he begged when his body had fallen, his cold eyes searching for some piece of his Bella. She'd broken his bones, his heart, and yet she just kept going.

"Silly boy." she whispered as she twirled in the water that now lay at their feet.

He saw the move before she made it. Watched in slow motion as the idea lit her pale blue eyes.

There wasn't a single part of him that relished in the moment. Not one inch that cried in victory as she lept for him, knife in hand, eyes on his heart.

There was no breath, no movement, no sound.

For the first time since he'd laid eyes on Bella he became afraid of the silence once again.

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY SATAN! **

**Well... thank you for going on this crazy ass ride with me. I know it was probably a pain in the ass to get so many updates in one day, but YAY an entire fic to read! Right? There may be a little something I post tomorrow on this, idk yet. My mind is all screwy right now. **

**Dear Satan, I truly hope you enjoyed your birthday today and this fic. You are one of the best people I know and care about in this fandom, and without you my confidence in even making this fic or any of words wouldn't be possible. You've been an amazing friend to me who deserves so much and I'm very fortunate to be able to say that I'm your friend. Now, go! Do a shot for me and hide hot hubs from Krakel. She's creepy. **

**To Lynz and MyHerion. You ladies are awesome. Thank you for helping with this, and Lynz for being creepy and making me giggle. You guys can thank her the eyeball bit. **

**Remember, reviews make me smile!**


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